The first of two housing reports expected this week showed Southern California home prices up 7.8 percent in June from the same period a year ago, although higher prices appear to be scaring buyers away.

Sales declined from year-ago levels for a second consecutive month, a sign the housing market “is transitioning,” the California Association of Realtors reported Monday, July 23.

The median price of an existing single-family home hit $539,000 in the region, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

That figure included:

A median of $586,090 for a Los Angeles County house, up 6.9 percent from June 2017.

A median of $835,500 for an Orange County house, up 5.1 percent.

A median of $405,000 in Riverside County, up 5.2 percent.

A median of $293,250 in San Bernardino County, up 8.6 percent.

The median is the point where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less.

Sales, meanwhile, fell 12.4 percent in the region from June 2017.

Sales have fallen year over year in eight of the past 10 months, largely due to a limited number of homes for sale. Listings have increased in recent months, however, with about 3,400 more homes for sale in late June than 12 months earlier.

Hence, higher prices and increased mortgage interest rates also could be contributing to lagging sales.

“The lackluster spring homebuying season could be a sign of waning buyer interest as endlessly rising home prices and buyer fatigue adversely affected pent-up demand,” CAR president Steve White said in a statement.

Back-to-back sales declines “could be an early sign that the market is transitioning,” added CAR Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young, “especially since further rate increases are expected to hamper homebuyers’ affordability and put a cap on how much they are willing to pay for their new home.”

Statewide, the median house price hit an all-time high of $602,760 in June, up 8.5 percent year over year. Sales, however, fell 7.3 percent from last year.

CoreLogic is expected to release more detailed numbers based on sales of all housing types on Tuesday.

For more than a decade, Jeff Collins has followed housing and real estate, covering market booms and busts and all aspects of the real estate industry. He has been tracking rents and home prices, and has explored solutions to critical problems such as Southern California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. Before joining the Orange County Register in 1990, he covered a wide range of topics for daily newspapers in Kansas, El Paso and Dallas. A Southern California native, he studied at UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. He later earned a master’s degree from the USC School of Journalism.